In this July 6, 2010, file photo, President Obama talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they walk to Netanyahu's car outside the Oval Office of the White House. / Carolyn Kaster, AP

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM - The Israeli government to be cobbled together following Tuesday's election will face problems such as a rising budget deficit, high housing costs and food prices.

But security and how to achieve it will remain No. 1, and for that, likely Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to decide how best to deal with the other leader who recently won a four-year term: President Obama.

Many Israelis said Obama may pressure Israel to make concessions he claims will bring peace to the region - such as giving up major portions of disputed land to the Palestinians - but Netanyahu believes that will make life less secure for Israel.

"It's commonly said that second-term presidents can do what they want" because they may feel less accountable to the voters, said Peter Medding, a political scientist at the Hebrew University. "But even if Obama isn't going to run for office in the future, his party will, and it's not in anyone's interest to make enemies."

Israel's three major televisions stations reported that Netanyahu's Likud Party emerged as the largest faction according to exit polls, which would give him another four-year term.

But gains by a centrist newcomer party raised the possibility that Netanyahu will be forced to form a broad coalition to take over the government.

Obama and Netanyahu have been at odds. The Israeli prime minister has called for the United States to set a red line over which Iran cannot cross with its nuclear program without facing military action, and Obama has refused.

Obama has complained that Israel's stand on settlements is making it difficult to move ahead with peace talks with the Palestinians, and he disclosed recently to a reporter that he did not think Netanyahu knew where Israel's best interests lie.

Medding said that "too much" is being made about the leaders' lack of personal chemistry. But with neighbors like Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza, and Iran threatening to make a nuclear weapon, maintaining friendly relations with the United States will be important.

The civil war in adjoining Syria and Iran's nuclear capabilities will continue to be at the top of the government's priority list, according to Eytan Gilboa, a Hebrew University political scientist.

"There is the potential that another government in Syria could be more hostile to Israel" than the regime of Bashar Assad, Gilboa said. Israel's border with Syria has been almost completely peaceful for decades.

Israel's goal, the political scientist said, is to prevent Syria's chemical weapons arsenal from falling into the hands of Islamic extremists, who are trying to wield more influence, especially in Egypt.

Unless the Obama administration brokers a convincing anti-nuclear-weapons agreement with Iran by the summer, Gilboa predicted, "Netanyahu will have to decide" whether or not to strike Iran, with or without U.S. backing.

In an analysis in the left-leaning Al Monitor, journalist Akiva Eldar predicts that Obama will be much less tolerant of Netanyahu's pro-settlement policies and determination to stop Iranian weapons at all costs.

"Netanyahu knew during his first term that he could still count on Obama to automatically intercept a condemnation of Israel in the (United Nations) Security Council. Not any more," Eldar said.

"From the day Obama gets sick of us, all he has to do is to instruct the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to absent himself from the vote," he said. Next time Obama will encourage European governments "to teach Netanyahu who is stronger."

A strong Israel, Eldar said, is the one perceived by its Arab neighbors "as a close ally of the world's strongest power" and not the one "showing off hollow muscles" on campaign billboards.

Medding recalled some of the many instances when previous U.S. and Israeli leaders clashed, and how the U.S-Israeli relationship survived and even thrived.

Tensions arose, for example, between former president George H.W. Bush and former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir when the U.S. president conditioned the loan guarantees that Israeli requested to help absorb a million new immigrants on an end to settlement activity.

What's important "are the mutual interests of the two countries, the common values and the common challenges. Personal issues will take second place to the need to make and implement policy together," Medding said.